The present disclosure generally relates to signal generating apparatuses and methods, and more particularly, to the apparatuses and methods for generating output signals by combining multiple input signals.
In some signal transmission techniques, different voltage values are used to carry different information for increasing the transmission rate. For example, 0 volt, 1 volt, 2 volt, and 3 volt may be used to carry the two-bit messages of 00, 01, 10, and 11, respectively. When the voltage difference between the transmitted information decreases, however, more sophisticated hardware may be needed to transmit and receive the messages, and therefore elongate the hardware development time and increase the hardware cost.
Based on the same concept, in some applications, multiple signals are combined as a single output signal, which also uses different voltage values to carry the information from the multiple signals simultaneously. For example, in High Definition Media Interface (HDMI) applications, the HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC) signals and the Audio Return Channel (ARC) signals may be combined as the HDMI Ethernet and Audio Return Channel (HEAC) signals for carrying the information of the HEC signals and the ARC signals simultaneously.
In some conventional approaches, the HEC signals and the ARC signals are generated by different hardware and the generated HEC signals and ARC signals are combined by another hardware. Thus, the hardware for the conventional approaches not only incurs more cost, but also consumes more energy. Besides, the integration of multiple hardware blocks also presents more challenges in the hardware design and manufacturing process.